IX. (1.) =For with respect to all this, I have given it to= (אל, not ‎‏את, which the LXX. render by εἰς) =my heart, and to sift out= (occurs here only, but compare chapter iii. 18) =with respect to all this= (but the LXX., dividing the words differently, evidently read ולבי ראת כל זה, which would mean, ‘when that heart was seeing all this.’ The number of various readings――see Stier and Theile, _Polyglot_――show that this passage was early one of difficulty. The rendering of Symmachus, preserved by Jerome, ‘omnia ita statui [fort. ἔταξα] in corde meo ut ventilarem universa,’ conveys the meaning; which is, that Koheleth set to his heart that which is the result when the matter is entirely sifted) =which is the righteous and the wise= (generic and plural, all those things which are right or wise generally; ‘right and wisdom,’ as we speak, is the meaning) =and their works= (_i.e._ what they produce, or, better still, their ‘services’) are =in the hand of the Deity, also love= (in the abstract), =also hatred= (also abstract, and גם being repeated gives the idea of both love and hatred too) =is nothing, knowing the man= (the negative belongs to the noun, not to the verb, and so the meaning must be ‘there is _no man_ who does know.’ Moreover, the two nominatives absolute, ‘love’ and ‘hatred,’ are the subjects of the whole sentence, ‘as to love or hatred either, there is no man who knows,’ or, better still, ‘to whom is made known,’ giving the import to the participle) =the whole= (generic) =before them= (distributive plural, any of them, equivalent then ‘to anything which is before them’). 2 All _things come_ alike │ evanescence being that which to all: _there is_ one event │ belongs to all. That which to the righteous, and to the │ happens is just the same to wicked; to the good, and to │ the right and to the wrong, to the clean, and to the unclean; │ good [_and to bad_, LXX.], and to him that sacrificeth, and │ to clean and to unclean, and to him that sacrificeth not: │ to the sacrificer as to one as _is_ the good, so _is_ │ who never sacrifices; as the the sinner; _and_ he that │ good, so the erring sinner, sweareth, as _he_ that feareth │ the forsworn as though he had an oath. │ feared the oath.